Glossary

Accessibility 

A numeronym for “accessibility”, with 11 representing the number of letters between the letter a and the letter y. 

This has two meanings in Canvas:

1. The user account for an individual, tutors, students or anyone employed within the university who needs to have access to Canvas. 
2. A hierarchical administrative structure in Canvas which maps to the university organisational structure.

Individual courses always reside within a particular level of the account structure, typically within a Department or Faculty. Canvas users with a type of Admin role can have direct access to particular sub-accounts. 

As part of the rollout of Canvas, most members of staff and all incoming students will have a user account in Canvas. Sign-in will require an individual’s SSO details.

'Site Admin' is the WebLearn equivalent.

An additional global navigation link for people with administrative roles, who might be supporting other users in a school, department or faculty. It gives access to defined areas of the account structure in Canvas and enables users to access courses without needing to be enrolled. 

See the entry on roles for more details; note these roles do not map onto any particular staff profile at Oxford, but will usually be restricted to key administrative staff. 

'Site Admin' is the WebLearn equivalent.

Alternative text
Textual alternative to an image.  
WebAIM: Alternative Text Links to an external site.

There are broadly two types of analytics in Canvas:

1. Course level analytics gives highlights of page views and student interaction with a course.
2. Account level analytics show highlights of general access and utilisation across all of the courses which reside within an account. Only admin users can see account level analytics.

This is a course tool for communicating with students or sub-sets of students if sections have been defined in a course. Announcements are useful for providing updates, reminders, and feedback. 

Read more in our Canvas@Oxford guides: Announcements and Discussions.

Accessible Resources Unit (ARACU) | Bodleian Libraries (ox.ac.uk)

A tool enabling students to upload coursework for review by tutors. This can be for the purposes of formative feedback, however, scores (points value) can be returned to students in the form of grades. Quizzes or discussions which are ‘graded’ are also considered 'Assignments' in Canvas.

See SpeedGrader.

A source of all official Canvas documentation, which acts as a wider collective forum for all institutions using Canvas. 

Canvas leverages collaborative technology to allow multiple users to work on the same document at the same time. Collaborative documents are saved in real-time, meaning a change made by any of its users will be immediately visible to everyone.

All Canvas courses support Google Docs as the default collaborations tool. Collaborations also supports the Google Apps LTI, which is enabled in a course as an external app. 

A 'container' of information which can house programme, paper, or tutorial level teaching resources. Bespoke course templates will be available to help individuals get started with creating their courses. Students and teachers must be enrolled onto courses in order to see them from the Dashboard.

Read more in our Canvas@Oxford guides: Academic terms dates in Canvas.

Note the potential ambiguity when referring to an instance of a ‘course’. Programmes of study at Oxford are generally assessed by ‘papers’, being equivalent to single summative assessment units recorded in SITS.

However, teaching might not always be grouped around a single ‘paper’, and might be split into more granular topics which are taught to students as distinct parts; these might be known as ‘modules’ or ‘courses’.

In these cases, it is likely that each part (and not the ‘paper’ in its entirety) has a discrete course space in Canvas. There will therefore be some variation across programmes of study in how discrete courses in Canvas are comprised. 

'Site' is the nearest WebLearn equivalent.

Course navigation has been customised for the templates which are being deployed as part of the rollout. This means that the default tools available have been limited to a core few (typically Home, Modules and Announcements). Any other course tools required can be made available by updating the navigation settings. 

Note that external tools such as Panopto or ORLO (which essentially ‘plug-in’ to Canvas) need to be made visible from the navigation menu.

Discussions provide forums for online conversation within a course. They can be used for providing instruction, feedback, or given as tasks and activities. Students can also use discussions within a group. 

Read more in our Canvas@Oxford guides: Announcements and Discussions.

As previously noted, the course templates provided for users at Oxford present a course layout (from the Home area of a course) using customised versions of modules.

'Lessons' is the WebLearn equivalent.

Canvas is usually accessed through a web browser, however there are two free mobile apps: Canvas Student and Canvas Teacher. Both are available for iOS and Android devices.

The default settings for notifications are outlined in CanvasNotifications Links to an external site. (this is an Instructure document). We recommend that all Oxford users in Canvas familiarise themselves with these settings and if necessary make adjustments.

This holds a similar functionality to Profile> Preferences in WebLearn.

A third-party tool for creating online reading lists which can be integrated (linked and displayed) in Canvas.

Read more: Oxford Reading Lists Online (ORLO) | Centre for Teaching and Learning

These are content spaces in a course (also referred to as a wiki in parts of Canvas), which can include text, video, and links to your files. Content is added through the Rich Content Editor. Links can be made to other course pages or content, including assignments or quizzes. 

By default, Panopto is hidden within Settings > Navigation. To record with Panopto, the client software needs to be installed. We would advise speaking with a learning technologist or contacting the Replay team replay@it.ox.ac.uk.

See the Educational Media Services site for more information.

People displays all users enrolled in a course, along with information about their activities in Canvas.

Perceivable Operable Understandable Robust

Accessibility Principles | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C Links to an external site.

Details for a user which can be edited and personalised, including the option to upload a photograph. See also account.

Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations  

Read more: Understanding accessibility requirements for public sector bodies - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Links to an external site.

A misleading term; put simply, every course must be ‘published’ before students can see it. The term also applies to individual content items, and is analogous to a visibility toggle.

Quizzes in Canvas are assignments that can be used to challenge student understanding and assess comprehension of course material. Question types include multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, short answer and matching statements.

Quizzes in Canvas are assignments that can be used to challenge student understanding and assess comprehension of course material. Question types include multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, short answer and matching statements.

A mechanism for sub-dividing student enrolments, which can be used to assign different due dates to single assignments. Sections are often and easily confused with Groups.

A method for accessing various university systems (including Canvas, WebLearn, or SOLO) with a common username and password.

The American term is misleading; essentially a syllabus is a customised page in a Canvas course, which presents a dynamic list of upcoming assignments and other events in the calendar. It can be used as an alternative home page.

Canvas does not have inbuilt templates. To support the rollout of Canvas across Departments and Faculties at Oxford, a series of programme, paper, and tutorial template courses have been developed. These use the modules structure to assemble content based on common patterns, and can be customised as required. 

Read more: Canvas Templates at Oxford

Canvas courses at Oxford will generally use the following conventions for terms: either ‘19-20 Entry’ for a programme level course, and ‘19-20 Academic Year’ for a taught paper, module or equivalent level course. In subsequent years the dates will change.

Some courses will run several times within a single year.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Read more: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C Links to an external site.

What You See Is What You Get

An environment for editing content where the appearance while editing is the same as the final output